“Why didn’t somebody tell me we have a newbie in the Calhoun place?” Carter asked.

“They’re here? I saw a moving truck the other day.”

“Not they. She.”

Bill paused with one foot out the door. “A woman?”

Having somebody new in town was big news. But a woman? Forget about it. News of this was going to spread like wildfire.

“You heard me.”

“Single?”

“Apparently.” She’d asked him to call her miz. He might have been in a lousy mood, but he hadn’t missed what that tidbit meant.

“What do you know?” Bill paused as he considered the possibilities. “Are we talking hot, young babe or retired bingo player?”

“Young.” And hotter than a pistol. Carter scowled when his mouse pointer stuck. Was nothing going to work for him today? He jiggled the mouse, and the pointer jumped halfway across the screen.

Bill just wasn’t going to make it out the door. “What’s she look like?” he asked.

Carter knocked the mouse against the table, but that helped about as much as using a sledgehammer on a straight pin. Finally, he gave up and turned the mouse over. He took out the batteries and opened his drawer to look for fresh ones.

What had Ms. Callie looked like? She looked like heaven, pure and simple.

He was always careful during traffic stops, but he hadn’t been prepared for what lay in store for him when he’d walked up to her car. She’d looked up at him with that tangled blond hair and those deep brown eyes, and he’d felt a solid kick in his gut.

Bill let out a whistle. “Wow, she must be something.”

Carter ground his teeth together. “She’s something, all right. She’s reckless. When I first spotted her, she was driving without any hands on the steering wheel. It was like she thought she was on a roller coaster or something.”

He blew out a breath. He didn’t know why she’d gotten him so worked up. When he’d come across her, he hadn’t been able to figure out what he’d been dealing with. She’d been acting so erratically. First there’d been the hand-waving incident. Then she’d stopped on the side of the road and sat for a spell. When she’d then started to drive and the speedometer had just kept climbing, he’d decided it was time to stop watching and do something.

Bill rounded the desk to look at the computer screen, and Carter nearly swore. He shouldn’t have pulled up the ticket. Bill’s eyes darted back and forth as he read the limited information. Carter couldn’t stop him with his mouse on the fritz. Besides, his officer could just go back to his own computer and pull up the ticket.

That didn’t mean he liked having him look at it.

“A silver Mustang?” Bill put a hand over his heart. “We’ve got a live one on our hands.”

Carter felt the twinge in his shoulder. He couldn’t blame the guy. There weren’t that many single, available women in Shadow Valley, and this town hadn’t seen a woman like Callie Thompson in a long time. He doubted Boston had seen many women like that.

If only she hadn’t tried to sweet-talk him…

Irritation surged all over again. Her smile and her routine had been so polished that he’d automatically known she’d used them before. Frankly, to feel that kick and then realize the smile could have been for anyone in a uniform had been a letdown. Worse, it had ticked him off, effectively ruining her chances of getting off with a warning. If that hadn’t done it, seeing her list of prior offenses would have. The woman was a regular speed demon—and a speed demon from Boston at that. Giving her a ticket had been a distinct pleasure.

Bill lowered himself into a chair, too intrigued to realize he should be leaving. “Why did she choose the Calhoun place?”

The Rutger house was less than a block away from Bill’s apartment. Carter hated to disappoint his officer, but honestly, he was kind of happy that she wasn’t moving into the rental. On the other hand, the place she was taking could be worse. “She inherited it.”

Bill’s head whipped back. “No way.”

“That’s what she says.”

“Does she know?”

“I don’t think so.”

Carter snapped the mouse back together and ran it experimentally over the mouse pad. Bill sat back in his chair and balanced it on its hind legs. He wasn’t ready to let go of the new girl thing—or the fact that she was moving into the most infamous house in the north county area. “Somebody’s bound to tell her.”